


The Odds

by xy0009



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Matchmaking, Mathematics, supercat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-25 06:12:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17115950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xy0009/pseuds/xy0009
Summary: Carter wants his mother and Kara to be together, but it seems like too many things are against it. He tries to find a way to change that.





	The Odds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lostinlunar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostinlunar/gifts).



> Fair warning, I haven't written a fanfic in over a decade, or written creatively for years so I'm a bit rusty. 
> 
> Much thanks to caycep, adelirioushonesty, and xxTorchxx, for giving this a last minute beta-read, and to suprasternalnotch and Rolo-Renegade plus the aforementioned, who let me bounce ideas off them.

 

The world of numbers fascinated him.

Ever since he could remember, he found a comfort in numbers. From the simple addition and subtraction to the harder pre-algebra he learned just before entering middle school. Clear and precise, and with rules that governed them. But his world was changed when he learned about statistics.

It came about rather unsurprisingly. Max Lord was having a special robotics exhibition and he wanted to go see it. He figured that since she was “The Queen of All Media” she would also maybe get him a special pass to meet Max himself.

“Not a chance.” She said.

The ensuing argument didn’t last long, and all his protests were shut down on the basis of the event being held on a school night, and about ethics. Something about how the foundations of his experiments had hurt others and she didn’t believe it was right to support him.

It disillusioned him, momentarily, but he knew that his mother was right. Hurting others was unacceptable, regardless of their reasons. She suggested she could find other scientists that were doing similar research and who weren’t involved in ethics investigations. Despite that advice, it wasn’t the topic he ended up researching that night.

 _“Not a chance.”_ She said. He was momentarily confused, as he knew the phrase meant “no” but not exactly how it meant “no”. He suspected it had more to it.

He Googled the phrase and was immediately hooked by its definition.

_“Odds are a numerical expression, usually expressed as a pair of numbers, used in both gambling and statistics. In statistics, the odds for or odds of some event reflect the likelihood that the event will take place, while odds against reflect the likelihood that it will not.”_

He didn’t know that there were numbers that could tell you if something was or was not going to happen. Probability: No matter what event happens, there are always odds behind it.

The simple google search soon turned into a Wikipedia crawl, which led him to YouTube to watch professors and other math enthusiasts explain the topic. The more he read the more he wanted to know. It was an article about the research of Dr. Ali Binazir that truly amazed him; he calculated the odds of anyone ever existing were one in 102,685,000. 

That meant that the odds that he, Carter Grant, would be born and have Cat Grant as his mother were 1 in 400 trillion.

His mind was blown.

But as he learned from the article, that chance didn’t exist on its own. Before that, there was the chance that his parents would even meet: 1 in 20,000. The chance that his parents would fall in love and conceive him: 1 in 2,000. But beyond that, the chance that one egg would meet the sperm that eventually became him was 1 in 400 quadrillion!

The fact rattled around inside his brain for days, astounded him so much that he wondered why this wasn’t a general fact that everyone knew. Why more people weren’t fascinated that every individual on Earth was a near statistical improbability.

Not satisfied with one fact, he went searching for more. He looked up everything he could about odds and the chances of something happening, from the well-known and often-cited, to the completely random.

 

The odds of being attacked by a shark: 1 in 3,748,067

The odds of being struck by lightning: 1 in 114,195.

The odds of being injured by a toilet: 1 in 10,000

The odds of finding a pearl in an oyster: 1 in 12,000

The odds of dying in a plane crash: 1 in 205,552.

 

The latter one worried him just a bit. Even if there was a greater probability of his mom getting struck by lightning (which he knew was brought down because his mother mostly worked indoors), he was aware of how much she traveled. When he found out that particular statistic, he was quick to go to his mother for more facts. At least, just to find something to assure himself that at her odds were less than the general population’s.

_“Hey mom, what type plane do you have?”_

_“Who’s your pilot?”_

_“You don’t really fly a lot right?”_

He asked over dinner, on one of the infrequent nights he wasn’t with his father and they had the chance—there it was again—to be together. Of course, his Pulitzer-prize winning mother asked him why, complete with a mild-glare and a raised eyebrow while taking a sip of her wine. He caved, and quickly went into all of these “cool facts” he was learning about statistics. He told her about the chances of finding a pearl, the odds of winning the $1 million dollars in the McDonald’s Monopoly game, about winning an Oscar, and lastly about the chances of dying in a plane crash.

She was silent for a moment before pulling out her phone and showing him a picture of the CatCo jet—a Gulfstream 650, specifically built for long distance flights---and a picture of her pilot, Samantha Greenwood, a former Air Force Lieutenant who had logged over 5,000 hours of flight time.

_“I almost talked Sully out of retirement, what with that whole pension fiasco, but CBS beat me to it.”_

She assured him that she only had the best pilots and mechanics to make sure her plane was always in top condition, the they ensured that all aviation regulations were followed, and that everyone was certified with proper training. Probabilities were indeed fascinating, and while they made things seem bleak, when it came to questions of possible danger, precautions and knowledge were the greatest tools to prevent them. Safety was something one could never spare money on, and she would always take every step possible to make sure she returned home to him, from wherever she had to be in the world. Above all, it was important to take in the larger picture. Statistics were cold, and what mattered was what those numbers told you and what was behind them. It wasn’t just the numbers that were important, but what you did with that information.

Satisfied with her answer, he continued to read about his new interest, learning about variables, and the little things that made the larger picture.

 

_________ 

 

Talk of statistics didn’t come up again until the night Supergirl saved a plane from crashing into the bay, after he spent hours calculating the chances of her being in the right place and at the right time and to somehow maneuver that plane so it didn’t take out the Otto Binder Bridge.

They came up again, on the night he found himself on a train and Supergirl came aboard, looked him in the eyes, and asked him to help her.

It sparked in his brain, one day while sitting in his mother’s office doing his homework after school, when he caught his mother looking at her assistant when she wasn’t paying attention. Her head was tilted slightly, with a soft look in her eyes and a gentle smile on her face that he rarely saw her give anyone but him. It was a look he had noticed more and more whenever he was visiting her office, one that he’d eventually come to expect whenever Kara was around.  

The spark would grow further, when he caught said assistant looking at his mom the same way while she was signing a document on her desk.

What were the chances that Kara would be his mother’s assistant, that his mother would have feelings for her, and that she would return those feelings?

What were the chances that Kara and Supergirl would end up being one in the same, and that Cat Grant was Supergirl’s mentor?

In his notebook, filled with equations, graphs, charts, and links to websites where he could find information on higher level statistics, he flipped to a blank page and began calculations on the chances that his mother and Kara would get together.

He accounted for the fact that his mother would probably never have a relationship with an employee, and that Kara wouldn’t initiate anything with her boss. He calculated for his mom’s stubbornness, and that Kara was probably too shy to act on anything she felt. He added variables for the chance that her board members would say no. Begrudgingly, he added a variable for the chance that maybe they didn’t have feelings for each other after all.

Overall, their chances didn’t look good.

This hurt him, because he honestly wanted his mother and Kara to be together. When he saw them together, he noticed the way his mother changed around her, how the inflection in her voice became tinged with a very light softness that made him feel happy when he heard it. She smiled to herself more, and since she had Kara as her assistant, didn’t seem to get stressed as much, and was around more to be with him.

As for Kara, she smiled at his mom, and made her life easier at work. Whenever he saw them working together, they were fluid, and Kara seemed to have a way of predicting his mother’s needs. They just seemed to fit. This became more apparent as time went on, and when Myriad happened, and he saw Supergirl’s message of hope to all the people of National City, he knew that the words she spoke were inspired by his mother. After all, she had told him similar things not too long before it all happened.

Personally, he rarely felt as comfortable as he did around her. She talked to him softly, made sure he was happy and had all he needed when he was in the office, even going as far as to have his favorite snacks and preferred blanket to wrap around his shoulders. She didn’t patronize him when he told her of his interests, and even asked him if he had learned anything new in his classes, or if he had found any new statistics to share with her. He once told her about NASA’s calculations of the probability of Earth getting hit by an asteroid and about how Supergirl factored in all that. She laughed nervously and asked him that maybe he’d be the one to figure it out.

He pictured scenes like this constantly. Coming home from school to have Kara help him with his homework while his mother cooked dinner, having breakfasts and dinners with them as a family, playing Settlers of Catan, having epic Nerf battles where it was every person for themselves, having movie marathons with buckets of popcorn, Kara showing him about space and finding stellar objects through his telescope at night…

This feeling of security, stability, and happiness would quickly become unbalanced when he remembered the odds of the whole thing even happening. He would analyze his calculations again and again and become frustrated with what he saw. Too many variables in the way. It was a frustration that would increase disproportionately when his mother decided to take a leave of absence.

An unforeseen variable.

Whatever chances there were of his mother and Kara being together were dashed, reduced to a statistical impossibility. Further compounded by the fact that Kara had gotten promoted to reporter, and it became less and less likely she would ever see Cat again. Same with Supergirl.

The page he devoted to his secret desire to see his mother happy with someone was quietly forgotten in his notebook, placed in his bookshelf among his comics and action figures of Supergirl and Superman.

Meanwhile, his practice of searching for probabilities became applied to more immediate matters:

 

Odds of Supergirl pushing a ship back to earth: 1 in 1,389

Odds of it snowing in Idaho while camping with his father: 1 in 3

Odds of his mother being able to Skype him from her yurt in the Himalayas: 1 in 2

Odds of her returning: 1

_________

 

When his mother returned to CatCo it never occurred to him that his hope of her and Kara being together would come to pass. Kara was no longer reporting to her, and on the days he would stop by his mother’s office, he didn’t see her anymore. She was always out on an assignment or working on a story. When he pictured them together he would remember that secret page in his book, but then quickly move on. There were too many variables against them. His mother would still not date an employee, and it was doubtful Kara would ask her out.

He was discouraged, but at the same time stuck between resignation and hope. He had witnessed first-hand the multiple times the world had almost ended at the hands of villains who had all odds stacked in their favor. Everything had seemed futile, only to have Supergirl arrive and balance those odds again. Every time his mother’s cameras caught her throwing a punch or giving her all, the number counter kept on count down, until victory became a statistical certainty. He knew the meaning of hope, and no matter how much time passed and how many events happened, it still lived on inside him.

It was this hope that made it occur to him: maybe the variables he was accounting for were too one-sided. He was only looking at situations that would decrease the overall odds of his mother and Kara being together, but what would happen if he looked for things that would increase those odds?

 

What if he looked at himself?

 

It was so simple that he was upset he didn’t think about it earlier. In his reading, he learned about something called a moderator. It was when a third variable affects the correlation between two depending and independent variables. For example, if a boat had been in the way when Supergirl had caught that plane, the chances of her being able to save it would have been much lower.

What if in this case, he could the moderator, the third and most important variable, raised the odds of his mother and Kara being together?

Just like Supergirl had been the moderating factor that saved the world several times over and tipped probability in Earth’s favor, he could be the unforeseen variable that tipped the probability in their favor.

 

He grabbed his old notebook sitting on his bookshelf and opened it to the page with his old calculations and smiled.

_________

School was out for Winter break and Carter was excited to spend the holidays with his mother this year. Cat had asked him what he wanted to do, and he responded that he was content with spending them locally, going out to the malls to shop, visiting light shows around the neighborhood or watching movies at home.

It was early Friday evening and he was about to walk by the kitchen to go to the living room to play some PS4 when he overheard Cat talking quietly with someone. He didn’t recall her saying they were having company, when he realized she was on the phone. He didn't know if she was facing the hallway where he was, so he stayed hidden. 

“Snapper may be a beard away from being Scrooge but that doesn’t mean he is one, darling. Enjoy your days off and feel lucky that he’s human enough to give them to you.”

“Yes, well, just remember that the headlines don’t stop just because it’s the holidays. He still expects you to work in some form or another.”

He heard her hum. 

“Me? Oh, just a quiet evening.

"Carter? Yes, he’s here.”

It only took him hearing his name to barge into the kitchen where his mother was leaning against the island.

“Kara?! Mom are you talking to Kara? Is that her?”

Cat startled and nearly dropped her phone. She made a scramble to get it before it shattered on the tile floor. “Jesus, Carter! You know it’s rude to interrupt when I’m on the phone young man, you startled me!”

He ignored her. “Is that Kara?”

He could hear a concerned Kara calling Cat’s name trying to get her attention. Cat raised a finger to him and put the phone back to her ear.

“Excuse me a second, Kara.” She put the phone to her chest and took a deep steadying breath before looking at him. “Yes, Carter. It’s her. What did you need?”

He swallowed. “Well, I was—I—”

She nodded at him to continue. “Yes?”

“I uh….” He could feel his heart in his throat. He hadn’t accounted for the factors of putting his plan into place. What were the odds that he’d chicken out of executing his plan, what with his mother giving him one of her patented looks? What if she got mad?

She gentled her eyes and spoke softly. “What is it Carter?”

He took a deep breath. “I was just wondering if we could…invite Kara over to dinner?”

She blinked.

“Please?”

She took another breath and started to shake her head.

“Carter, I—”

“Please, mom?  It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen her, and it’s Christmas in a few days. We could order some pizza, watch some movies.  We can play Settlers of Catan so you can see how good she is!”

Cat looked at him with sharp green eyes and could see how earnestly he wanted this. It had indeed been a long time since he’d spent time with Kara, and he rarely asked for anything. She lifted her phone to her ear.

“Kara? Yes, I’m okay. It’s just—Carter wanted to know if you wanted to join us for dinner tonight?”

Carter lifted himself onto the balls of his feet trying to reign his excitement and utter nervousness. He didn’t want to think of the odds of Kara saying no. He could hear her nervous stuttering through the speaker. 

“Yes, Kara, tonight. I’m sure."

He could hear the beginnings of Kara rambling and he laughed. She gave him a weak glare and rolled her eyes playfully, interrupting Kara. "Kara, yes, it’s okay with me, I promise. I'm extending the invitation as well. Besides, it’ll make Carter happy." 

She began picking one of her cuticles as she continued to listen. "No, it’s okay, you don’t have to bring anything, we’ll—” She looked around the kitchen noticing she hadn’t prepared dinner yet. She caught Carter waving at her and mouthing _“pizza”._  This time she rolled her eyes at him. “I’ll order some pizza for all of us.”

She looked at him briefly and then as she listened to Kara continue on excitedly, a small smile appeared on her face. When she caught him staring, it was gone.

“Seven is fine. Of course, we’ll see you soon.”

She ended the call and put the phone on the kitchen island. She turned towards him and crossed her arms, unfazed by his wide grin and excited quivering.

“Do you want to explain that, Carter?”

Feeling good about this first victory, he plowed forward. Kara had beat one set of odds, and now it was time for his mother to beat the next one.

“I just really miss her, mom. I really like when she’s around, and—” he took a deep breath “I know you do too.”

She scoffed slightly and went to the refrigerator, jerking its French doors open.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Carter, we work together. She was my assistant for years.”

“Mom, come on. I’ve seen how you look at her. I know you missed her when you were in Bhutan. I did too, but—I know you like her. Like, like like, her.”

She turned to look at him, “Carter, what have we said about grammar?”

“Mom…”

Cat turned from him to look at the contents of the refrigerator and pursed her lips, thinking for several seconds. Eventually she let out a breath and closed the appliance without getting anything out of it. She rubbed her hairline before walking back to the island, turning towards him but not looking directly at him, her tone soft,

“Carter, it’s not that simple. There are…complications. Things. Yes, I do like like her, as you so aptly put it, but—”

Carter listened to her patiently.

“I’m so much older than her, and she has her life ahead of her with a career that’s incredibly important. She has so much potential, and I can’t get in the way of that. I can’t—” She shook her head and looked off into the distance.  

He slowly stepped closer to her, knowing that the wrong words from him could change everything. He realized that this was one of those moments where the odds didn’t really matter in the face of the bigger of picture. The numbers in his head and the ones written in his notebook felt meaningless when he saw his mother struggling with herself and denying herself the chance to be happy.

“I know mom. I may not get it entirely, but…I want you to be happy. It’s not just that I’ve seen how you look at her, I’ve seen how happy you get when she’s around. You just seem….I don’t know, more you.”

Cat looked at him. “More me?”

“Yeah, like…I’ve seen the way you are with your other employees, and it’s not the way you are with her usually. When I’ve been there and seen you with her, it reminds me of how you are here at home.”

Cat had turned to face him and had a strange look on her face, one that seemed caught between shock and fear. He was scared as well, as he knew he hadn’t totally convinced her. Somewhere in the back of his mind however, he realized that no matter the chances of this ever happening, what mattered was that he had to try.  

“I just…I used to imagine all three of us being together, as a family. Kara’s just so awesome and I always feel so comfortable when I’m around her because she lets me be me. She doesn’t treat me like some dumb kid or like my interests are stupid. She’s like, one of the only people who I can talk about statistics, or astronomy. When I used to see you two together before you left and how well you worked with her even when she was Supergirl—”

He saw his mother’s eyes widen like saucers and make like she was about to interrupt him but he continued, not letting her talk, “Yes, mom, I know Kara is Supergirl and no I’m not going to tell anyone but that’s not the point. The point is…I know that you two like each other. I’ve seen how she looked at you too, like…like you’re everything to her. And don’t get mad but, when you left I used to text with her sometimes, and she always asked where you were and if I knew anything. I mean she’s not even your assistant anymore but she still calls you, right? That’s gotta mean something.”

He couldn’t exactly read the expression on Cat’s face, but he saw her eyes were slightly glassy. He didn’t know what this meant.

“Please, mom? Just try.”

He saw a tear slip from her eye but before he could question it she pulled him into a strong hug, wrapping her arms rightly around his shoulders, and felt her kiss the side of his head. When they pulled apart she took his face in her hands and nodded.

“I will Carter. Thank you.”

This time it was him that pulled her into a hug, this time giddy. “Thank you, mom.” They pulled apart and smiled at each other. 

“Well, if you’re able to convince me like that then I must certainly be doing something right in raising you. Now, choose what kind of pizzas you want so I can place an order. Remember to get Kara two to herself.”

“Why not three, since she’s so fond of leftovers?”

“Well, if I’m paying for it. Though if this little plan of yours is going to come to fruition she better get used to eating some real food once in a while.”

He laughed as he made his way over to the living room and turned on the television and grabbed his controller. “Just leave that to me mom.”

_________

 

The actual odds that he worked out in his notebook read: 1 in 5,720.

Those were the odds of his mother and Kara being together. When his mother left, and Kara was promoted, they reached 1 in 10,280. He stopped calculating and the notebook was shelved

When she came back, they reset to their original value. On that evening when Kara came over and they spent the night playing board games, and Cat said it was okay that he invite her over on Christmas Eve before she left to be with her family, they were around 1 in 3,758.  When Kara said yes, they were 1 in 3,000. As he headed off to bed and he overheard his mother asking Kara if she wanted a glass of wine before leaving, they nudged down to 1 in 2,500.

On Christmas Eve, when he caught them kissing next to their Christmas tree by the large bay windows overlooking the city, he decided their odds were irrelevant.

  

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays! 
> 
> I'm sorry wasn't able to get the smut in, but I hope this was acceptable. I also realize that we didn't get to see Carter speaking to Kara, but I sort of felt it didn't need it. From the moment I came up with this idea the fic took on a life of its own. I hope you enjoy it. :)  
> ___
> 
> The information that Carter finds is from real life professor Dr. Ali Binazir, who published his research in in 2011. You can read it [here](https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/11/18/142513598/are-you-totally-improbable-or-totally-inevitable). 
> 
> Wiki's definition of odds as seen from [Google](https://www.google.com/search?q=odds&oq=odds&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i60j35i39j69i59j69i60l2.476j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8). 
> 
> Official page of the [Gulfstream G650](http://www.gulfstream.com/aircraft/gulfstream-g650), the plane I headcanon Cat has.


End file.
